The Language of ‘Uncivilized’ Cultures (teaser)

Posted on April 16, 2007 by Dave Pollard

No post today, as I’m working on my short story. But if you have time today, pick up and have a read of the article The Interpreter by John Colapinto in The April 16th New Yorker (not online, abstract here, photo above by Martin Schoeller from this portfolio), describing a culture, that of the Amazonian Piraha, whose language seems to defy all the rules of what a language should be (i.e. an instrument of civilization) and whose people have absolutely no usefor our culture. I’ll have more to say on this later in the week.